Trap Ninety-Eight
by devdevlin
Summary: Upon her return to the time she once knew, Hermione Granger finds that things are not at all as she remembered. As her memories slowly return and it soon becomes clear that the only one who can help her is the one she wishes dead, she will soon come to suspect that nineteen ninety-eight may become even more disastrous than forty-four... Sequel to Trap Forty-Four
1. Chapter 1

**lol surprise surprise i lied again, who would have thought it?**

This is a short little opener that I've chosen to post because I have no self-control. I hope you enjoy.

If you haven't read Trap Forty-Four, I insist that you turn back now and read it first. This, being a sequel, won't make much sense if you haven't (and I really hope that it does if you HAVE read it haha)  
xx

* * *

Her pulse pounded in her ears as her eyes locked onto the figure sat before her, unable to look away. They must have been deceiving her, for the sight wasn't possible. He was not, _could_ not be sitting before her. _It simply_ _was not possible._ She was hallucinating, she had to be.

"I have waited a very long time to see _you_ again," he said as the door behind her clicked shut of its own accord. As he spoke, his voice sounded so _realistic_ and so very familiar that her brain completely stopped functioning.

She couldn't think, couldn't _breathe_.

"Do you know how hard it's been these last six years? Seeing you walk these halls without so much as a flicker of recognition?" He slowly rose from behind the desk, leaning onto it as he went, stalking her.

 _What had she done?_

 _What had she done?_

"Every year I've been watching you, waiting for you to finally _see_ me."

She stepped backward, her back colliding with the wooden door as he stepped around the table, the valuable distance between them shrinking.

"Do you have any idea of how I have _longed_ for this?"

"I - no, _no, no_ , this isn't real," she insisted to herself. "You aren't-"

"Oh, but I am," he interrupted, reaching her at last.

" _No, no, no, no_ -"

He placed his hands against the door on either side of her head, trapping her in. Close up, she could see the truth behind his words in the lines in the corners of his eyes; no longer was he just a boy. While she had come fresh from that night in the forties, he must have had _years._

 _But it wasn't possible. Hadn't she already established that she was hallucinating? Her mind was playing tricks. Creative tricks, yes, but tricks all the same._

"You didn't seem to mind the last time we were alone together."

She squeezed her eyes shut. _It wasn't real, he wasn't real, it was all in her head._

"Well... the last time we were together, for _you_ , I suppose," he corrected, a grin that held no happiness growing on his lips. "But for me... I saw you just this very morning. You'd just taken your last NEWT yesterday - and performed very well, might I add. You were positively glowing as you spread your morning toast, and as I watched you, I just knew it. There was _something_ about you that told me - _today was the day._ Somehow, for some reason, you would go back, and we were to meet, at long last."

She flinched back as she felt his warmth radiating from him, the back of her head colliding painfully into the door.

 _Could one feel their hallucinations?_

"Forgive me, it's all very confusing, really. I can't imagine what it must be like for you," he said, his voice lowering as he weaved a tendril of her hair around his finger, the same way he had done in his dormitory.

This time, feeling his touch, she ducked and weaved out from underneath his arms, _needing_ to distance herself.

 _He felt so real._

 _But he couldn't be real..._

He laughed gently as he watched her retreat back through the Headmaster's office, not unlike a skittish cat. "Fear not, Miss Granger. I would hazard a guess that the memories of your - shall we say - _new_ _life_ will come back to you, soon enough."

"What are you talking about?" She managed.

His smile grew wider. "I'm sure you'll find that things are not at all the way you remember. With the help you gave me all those years ago, I was able to ensure none of it would come to pass."

Her breathing sped up, the weight of his words seeming to squeeze the air out of her lungs.

 _What did that even mean?!_

" _Come now_ , Miss Granger, I thought we had been becoming friends!" He said with playful frustration. "Surely you must have questions! You wear your thoughts on your sleeve, and I'm absolutely positive your curiosity must be bursting at the seams."

But there was only one she could think of, only one that held importance to her in that very moment.

"W-where is Dumbledore?"

His expression fell ever so slightly. "Dumbledore is dead," he said simply.

His words chilled her to the core.

 _Dumbledore is dead._

She hadn't saved him, after all.

 _Dumbledore is dead._

The one person who might have been able to help her.

 _Dumbledore is dead._

She hadn't bettered their situation at all. In fact, this was surely worse than the scenario she had left behind. They now had a young Dark Lord who was seemingly yet to rise, while Dumbledore was _gone._

The walls began to close in on her.

"I - I can't..." she trailed off as her head began to feel lighter, dark spots appearing in her vision. "I need air... I have to... to..."

He didn't hide the disappointment in her reaction, a scowl quickly forming on his features. He gestured to the door lazily and stepped aside, leaving a clear path to freedom for her.

"Be on your way then," he said lowly. "You'll be back soon enough."

She stepped around him, moving to leave faster than she'd ever moved in her life.

"Oh, and _Hermione?_ " He called as she had one foot out of the office, her name leaving his lips sounding like acid.

She stopped but did not turn.

"Keep in mind," he began, his tone lowering. "No one will ever believe you."

* * *

HAHAHA I swore to myself that I wouldn't do it, BUT HERE WE ARE

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	2. Chapter 2

***hem hem* as we all know; time travel stories will be flawed. it is in their very nature to have an abundance of plot holes. thus, this story may or may not contain a doozy or two. apologies, but as i am not a physicist, they are unavoidable, so i am sorry if you get stuck on the paradoxes, but, just like my guilt over working on this instead of doing my actual job, they're here to stay.**  
 **Enjoy!**

* * *

 _I have waited a very long time to see_ you _again..._

 _Every year I've been watching you, waiting for you to finally_ see _me..._

His words, hazy and haunting, stuck with her over the course of the night. Her mind was caught on them, tossing them over and over, tasting them, analysing them for what surely was hidden in between them.

 _Dumbledore is dead..._

 _Dumbledore is dead..._

 _No one will ever believe you..._

One thing, at least, was clear. Although he hadn't put it in so many words; she had fucked up.

 _I'm sure you'll find that things are not at all the way you remember..._

She didn't even have the comfort of the possibility of him lying. His mere presence in the Headmaster's office proved his truthfulness.

As she exhaled another shaky breath and held her head in her hands, a soft whine slipped through her teeth as she tried to smother the growing feeling of impending doom. But, with the night's cold wind brushing over her and tangling her hair around her fingers, it only seemed to push it in deeper.

After fleeing the Headmaster's office, she had retreated out to the courtyard without the slightest care as to whether she was caught or not. After all, what was a mere detention when she'd already obliterated her timeline with consequences unknown?

She just needed to be alone, somewhere that the walls couldn't cave in on her, somewhere that she could breathe.

She needed to _think._

She came very close to leaving altogether multiple times. She toyed with the idea of summoning her belongings down from her dormitory and making the journey out of the grounds by foot, but was stopped by the knowledge that the protective enchantments would surely alert the Headmaster if a student were to leave. While she knew it was the end of term and that the students would be returning home in two days, it still felt like an unimaginably long period of time. Stuck back in the presence of Tom Riddle once more, the prospect of staying felt as if it were to be two years, not days.

But, she reminded herself that her biggest concern above all needed to be Harry. Tom had seen him in her mind. He knew the face of the boy who'd claimed to have destroyed one of his horcruxes. He had killed Myrtle for much less. Even though Lavender had said Harry was fine, it didn't necessarily _mean_ he was fine. What would Lavender know?

As such, her decision was made. She couldn't leave the castle without making sure that Harry was safe, Tom Riddle be damned.

She needed to stay.

She lost track of time as she huddled beneath her cloak on the cold bench, pondering her options and weighing up each of their potential ramifications. Before she knew it, the birds had woken from their slumber, alerting her to the fact that she'd been out there all night. As the sun slowly rose and dawn broke over the arches of the courtyard, Hermione finally forced her stiff muscles to move. It was only once she was on her feet that she registered the early throbbing of the beginning of a bad stress headache between her eyes.

Thanks to the early hour of the morning, she managed to slowly make her way to the seventh floor without being seen by anyone other than the Grey Lady who simply drifted on past her. She was grateful; she didn't think she had the energy for any socialisation. Not at least until she'd seen Harry, anyway.

As she had done the night before, she lingered in front of the Fat Lady's portrait with a heavy feeling in her stomach, dreading what was to come. But, as she eventually mustered the courage to slip through the portrait hole into the common room, she was comforted by one thought. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that Tom had been wrong - at least about one thing.

Harry and Ron would believe her.

* * *

Like she'd done with Lavender, she launched herself at her two best friends, feeling a wave of relief as she saw a very healthy-looking Harry that was so strong she could barely breathe.

Ron let out a muffled groan at her impact.

" _Ow,_ bloody _hell,_ 'mione."

Her breath hitched as Ron spoke; he'd used her nickname. That had to mean they were still friends, didn't it? That she hadn't jumbled time so badly as to ruin their friendship?

"I'm so glad you're alright," she said as Ron continued to try to pry himself out of her grip, her voice muffled against the fabric of Harry's cloak.

"Why wouldn't we be?" Ron questioned, attempting to shake her off once more.

"I just - you have no idea, I - I thought that-" she broke off as she reluctantly let them go to wipe underneath her eye in a bid to stop herself from crying. "Oh, I'm sorry. It's been a long night - bad dream," she added as she glanced to the few other students who were now watching their interaction.

Perhaps the common room wasn't the best place for their much-needed discussion.

Ron looked at Harry, making it clear that he thought she'd lost it, while Harry frowned. "D'you need us to get you something?"

"No, no," she said quickly, "I'm fine."

It only took a moment for her to regret her words; a calming draught might've actually been exactly what she had been needing.

"You look knackered enough to give the ghoul in our attic a run for its money," Ron stated abruptly. "You sure you're alright?"

After assuring them a few more times that her lack of sleep was nothing to be concerned about, Hermione finally let herself relax, feeling the first period of calm she'd experienced in weeks. Being back in the warm Gryffindor common room with her two, _safe_ best friends was almost overwhelming.

It wasn't until Ron made a statement that was so very typical of him that her calm was disturbed. "We heading down then? I'm starved."

While Harry grinned in agreement, Hermione tried her best to swallow the newly formed lump in her throat. Still, comforted by her two best friends by her side, she managed to force herself to follow them down to breakfast that morning. As much as she wanted nothing more than to lock herself away in her room, she knew she needed to see if and how the school had changed for herself.

There was no point in delaying the inevitable.

Upon entering the hall, her attention was immediately drawn to the long table at the opposite end where the professors sat lined up. She thanked her lucky stars seeing that the Headmaster's place was empty and couldn't help but feel the glimmer of hope that she had just imagined the night before.

Losing her mind was far preferable to the alternative.

She scanned the room as inconspicuously as possible as she followed Ron and Harry to an open place along the Gryffindor table, trying to spot an unfamiliar face, or something drastic that had changed.

It came as a relief to see that the line-up of professors remained unchanged from what she remembered, aside from the absence of Professor Dumbledore. Even an aged Professor Slughorn sat toward the end of the table, flanked by Hagrid to his left and Flitwick to his right. The only visible difference was that to the right of the Headmaster's place sat Professor Snape rather than the usual McGonagall.

She tried to tell herself that it didn't mean anything. Perhaps McGonagall simply wished to have breakfast next to Professor Sprout for a change, or maybe Snape wished to have a word with Dumbledore. There could have been many reasons for their swap. It might have had nothing to do with Tom Riddle at all.

But as she focused back on her classmates, she was struck by the unusual amount of unfamiliar faces, and not just within the younger years, either. Toward the end of the Gryffindor table sat a tall boy she was sure she'd never seen before, and further down sat an unknown blonde girl next to Ginny.

The other houses, Slytherin in particular, held even more unfamiliar students which deepened the sense of dread in the pit of Hermione's stomach. While she feebly tried to remind herself that it _was_ a big school and she didn't know everybody, she knew beyond a doubt that she was lying to herself.

Things _had_ changed.

She tried to keep her breathing in check as she plonked herself down on an empty patch of the bench opposite Harry and Ron and poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice to distract herself. But, much like all of her previous attempts at distraction, it proved fruitless. She just couldn't control the worry that had burrowed itself in her mind.

What if she had been wrong? What if Harry and Ron didn't believe her? What if they labelled her insane and shipped her off to St. Mungo's?

 _Or worse_ , she thought to herself as the ache behind her eyes sharpened, what if Tom found out that she'd told them about her time in the forties? What if he somehow heard her? What if he dug around in Harry or Ron's memory to see that she had told them everything?

She would be placing a target on their backs, too.

At that thought, she made the decision that she wouldn't tell Harry and Ron until they were out of Hogwarts, and there was a safe distance between _all_ of them and Tom Riddle. She just needed to keep her cool until they were safely on the Hogwarts Express. Then, she could tell them everything. She could keep it all to herself for two days.

She could do that.

But keeping calm and quiet wouldn't be possible if she couldn't stop her _damn_ hands from shaking. If it had been only herself and Ron, she wouldn't have needed to worry, for he was far too busy shovelling in his breakfast to notice anything beyond the distance of the end of his fork. But Harry... Harry had always been far more observant than his best friend, and so on multiple occasions over breakfast, she found herself catching his questioning glances.

Still, Hermione thought she did a relatively good job at keeping her cool, all things considered.

She had her bushy hair to thank for covering her visibly tense shoulders. For their entire breakfast, the muscles didn't relax once, making her the pain in her head feel much more pronounced than it actually was. Although she nibbled at her toast and tried to force herself to stay focused on her plate, she found herself unable to restrain from constantly glancing over to where the professors sat to see the empty Headmaster's chair in the centre.

While she clung to the hope that he wouldn't be attending breakfast, she didn't actually expect him to remain absent. If how he was in the forties was anything to go by, she was certain he'd be the type to attend each and every meal, all in a bid to maintain his image of perfection.

She couldn't help but wonder how he'd managed it. Becoming Headmaster couldn't have been an easy feat, nor would've been removing Dumbledore from the post. And above all else, _how had he managed to stay so young?_

After she'd left, had he gone on to make more horcruxes or had her memories been enough to dissuade him? Had he found some other way to preserve his youth? Had she inadvertently made him even harder to kill?

Or - _Merlin_ \- could he have _followed_ her? Had _he_ jumped through time, too?

But then the _atmosphere_ changed.

The barrage of questions and theories running loose in her mind were brought to an abrupt halt as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, the skin beneath erupting in goosebumps. Her instincts drew her attention to the entrance of the hall, although she knew who it was before she saw him.

And there he was; Tom Riddle, in the flesh, just as she had remembered from those few hours before.

He swept through the hall with long strides, each one positively oozing with confidence. His dark robe billowed behind him, and Hermione quickly became all too aware that she was not the only one in the hall who's focus was on him.

But his image simply _demanded_ the attention. He held his chin high in a posture that was the definition of perfect, and the powerful air about him made it undeniably clear; this was where he belonged. He belonged in this school in a way that she did not.

He _owned_ this school.

And here - just like in the forties - it was _she_ who was the outsider.

This realisation, along with seeing him for the second time hit her harder than it had initially, and the harsh reality of her situation finally started to sink in.

 _She had not been hallucinating._

 _He was, undeniably, real._

An uncomfortable, tingling sensation ran down her neck as his dark eyes searched down the Gryffindor table, only stopping once they met hers. Her lungs emptied as his watch brought her out of her trance, and she immediately turned back toward the table and glanced back down at her uneaten breakfast, feeling the heat of his gaze boring into her skin.

Still, she remained stubborn and waited until she saw him pass in her peripheral vision before she relaxed ever so slightly and dared to look back as he stepped around the professors' table at the end of the hall, greeting the other teachers as he went. She held her breath as she observed how the other professors received him, half expecting McGonagall, or even Slughorn to protest his presence, to turn their wands on him and demand to know what he had done to Dumbledore.

But they didn't. Instead, they smiled politely, exchanging words of greeting before Tom said something that Hermione was sure _must_ have been awful, because the whole table of professors erupted in _laughter._

She turned back toward Harry and Ron and pulled her lip between her teeth, closing her jaw so tightly that it stung.

"Have you..." she dared to begin, pulling at the crust of her toast nervously and spilling crumbs over the table. "Have either of you ever noticed anything... _strange_ about... Professor Riddle?"

"Hmm?" Harry sounded around his mouthful of eggs.

"I mean... he's..." she broke off to clear her throat as she glanced back toward the staff table to see him now in a tight conversation with Snape. "I don't know - have you ever noticed, just anything... odd?"

"Oh, changed your tune, have we?" Ron interrupted loudly from next to Harry. "Whatever happened to, 'oh, poor Professor Riddle, he's always working _so hard'_?" He asked in a put on feminine voice.

"Excuse me?!"

"What, am I wrong? Are you no longer head of the Professor Riddle fan club?"

She almost found herself lost for words. "Of-of course not! That's _preposterous!_ I would _never_... he... he's creepy, and-and _vile_ , and-"

"Erm, Hermione?" Harry interrupted gently after exchanging a questioning glance with Ron. "Has something happened?"

"What do you mean, has something happened?" She snapped, her cheeks flushed with heat.

"Well... Ron's not exactly wrong, you know..." Harry explained, trailing off as Hermione's glare grew colder.

"He's wrong all the time!"

"Oi!"

"If something's... I mean, if he's done anything," Harry continued in a quieter tone, leaning forward across the table as he spoke, "you know you can tell us."

She tensed as she glanced back behind her to see that Riddle was still conversing with Snape. "Not here," she eventually whispered.

At her tone, Ron's expression hardened before he sat up straighter and angrily glared over toward the professor's table.

" _Ron!_ " She protested, closing her hand around his wrist. "Don't!"

"What's he done then?" He asked. "Is he giving you trouble? Did he _flunk_ you? Or - _he didn't make a pass at you, did he?!_ "

" _No! Of course not!_ Just... not here, okay? On the train."

Ron shifted and narrowed his eyes in Riddle's direction for a final time before he eventually relaxed back into the bench.

"Thank you."

Her relief, however, was short lived; it was only another moment before she felt the goosebumps forming on the back of her neck again.

And this time, they didn't go away.

* * *

It didn't take long for her give in to the call of the library. Eleven hours, to be precise. After leaving Harry and Ron to their Quidditch practicing, she had wasted no time in barging in and making herself at home, grateful that her haven was deserted now that exams were over. The allure of potentially hundreds of new or altered books had simply been too much for her to resist, even with the pounding headache that still lingered behind her eyes.

She needed answers, and she was sure that the library had them. She figured that anyone who had been given the role of Headmaster of Hogwarts must have had an impressive resume, and so therefore, it was only logical that she would learn all she needed to know about this Tom Riddle within a book.

Much to both her convenience and displeasure, the answers turned out to be far easier to find than she had expected. Headmaster Tom Riddle had made quite the name for himself in this timeline, albeit in a very different, and more peaceful way than she remembered.

She managed to withhold her shriek of outrage as she read that he had found fame as the only known wizard alive to travel forward in time after having disappeared without a trace back in nineteen forty-six.

It had taken him two years. Two _measly_ years, and he had figured out how to do something no one else in history had done before.

Well... no one aside from herself, of course.

And he had claimed it as his accomplishment! _His!_

She scoffed as she wondered how he had done it. Apparently, he had kept consistently mum on the subject, refusing to share his secret all in the name of safety - she had snorted aloud reading the word - for those who wished to follow in his footsteps, and for the good of preserving the natural timeline.

While this information had been exactly what she was looking for, it only let loose a string of further questions. Had he found his own way forward? Or had he figured it out with the help of the Room of Requirement, as she had?

She would have bet money on the latter.

Her sudden disappearance must have infuriated him, she thought to herself smugly as she absentmindedly brushed along her cheek with the end of her quill. He wouldn't have been able to stand knowing of the strange girl who was out there somewhere, having both escaped him and accomplished something as monumental as time travel. It must have driven him positively _mad._

She could picture it clear as day, as if she had been there to witness it; he must have spent all of his spare time of his final year searching the school top to bottom looking for any trace of her. How much time must he have wasted before he finally stumbled upon the Room of Requirement?

She smiled at the thought.

But, while it was the only chain of events she could imagine to be true, the gaping flaw in her logic made her second-guess her conclusions. He had risen to fame in _nineteen eighty-seven_. _Ten years ago_. Ten years before she was due to adventure back to the nineteen-forties.

That must have meant that the Room hadn't led him straight to her so simply. Instead, it must have meant that he'd either _planned_ on jumping forward and arriving while she was still a child, or... he had simply... misjudged.

After all, what he had seen in her mind might not have been enough for him to determine _when_ she was from.

But this was all assuming that he had _followed_ her, of course. He might not have. He might have simply wished to change his fate and decided that time-travel was the best way to do so. Their encountering each other once again may have simply been... a coincidence, of sorts.

But he had said in his office that he had been waiting for her, had he not? He had said he had been waiting for her to recognise him. Not only that, but he had even gone to the lengths of becoming Headmaster to ensure he would be around to see her again.

He _must_ have followed her. He had to have done.

 _But why_ -

"You are a creature of habit."

Hermione very nearly prodded herself in the eye with the end of her quill as she lurched at the sound of the voice, having been so caught up in her theorising that she hadn't heard anyone approach. Recovering quickly, she hurriedly pulled her history book closer and snapped it shut, not wanting him to see her reading material as she silently cursed herself for not thinking to find a different corner of the library.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be? More important things to be doing?" She shot with narrowed eyes and a voice that sounded far more confident than she felt. " _Running a school_ , perhaps?"

Although Riddle didn't respond to her quip as he moved around the table to take up the seat across from her, Hermione did not miss the way his mouth turned upward.

Her lips thinned.

"I didn't say you could sit there," she said much too bravely.

"I don't suppose I need your permission," he said as he relaxed into the chair, properly smiling at her now.

She met his eyes for a moment, _only a moment_ , before she sighed stubbornly. Tucking her lip between her teeth, she quickly began to gather her things, cramming her books and parchments into her bag without a care for her usual organisation.

If he wouldn't leave, then she would.

"I wanted to give you this."

She tried her best to ignore him as she finished packing her bag and hoped that he hadn't noticed the way she'd flinched at his soft tone.

"Hermione." The way he said her name, oddly intimately, finally won him her attention. She looked up just in time to see him pulling his hand back from across the table. Her eyes locked onto a small, golden badge sitting on the desk between them.

She froze.

"You deserve it."

She glanced away from the badge that pulled at her heartstrings and searched him, eyebrows furrowed.

 _What was he playing at?_

"I don't want it," she said quickly before she rose from the table.

" _Hermione_ -"

She hurried down the aisle of books, wanting nothing more than to distance herself. She couldn't be alone around him again. Not with whatever game he was playing, not while she was not yet proficient with her occlumency.

She didn't make it far though before she was pulled to a stop, her upper arm burning underneath his tight grip.

"Will you please just stop-"

"Don't touch me," she ordered, spinning to face him as she yanked her arm back painfully.

" _Granger-_ "

"I said, _don't touch me!_ " She yelled, snapping at last.

The air between them thickened as she raised her chin, holding her ground.

She expected an argument. She expected him to call her a coward, or tell her she was being daft, or stubborn, or both. What she did not expect, however, was for him to reach into his pocket and pull out a small, purple vial.

It was her own mistake really, for when had Tom Riddle ever done anything she'd expected him to?

"Here."

Even though the label was familiar, she eyed the vial that he offered her cautiously.

"It's a calming draught, you silly girl."

 _At least she hadn't been wrong about the insult._

"Why would I believe you?"

"I know you might find this difficult to comprehend, but I have no desire to see you running about the castle shouting accusations to anyone who is foolish enough to listen to you," he said quickly, his words quickly becoming sharp. "Now, take it."

She continued to eye the vial suspiciously, not wanting to take anything from him. Nothing coming from him could possibly be a good thing.

But over the course of the day, the pain behind her eyes had only grown worse, and she was almost beginning to worry that the muscles in her neck would soon become permanently seized up.

And the vial was sealed, after all. She _could_ benefit from calming down a bit.

She made a split-second decision and snatched the small vial out of his fingers, careful not to make any skin contact as she did so, and hastily uncorked the vial before downing its contents. The effects were immediate; the muscles that had been locked up for the last day softened at the same time as her heart rate and breath slowed, while the stress headache that had made its home between her eyes slowly began to fade.

"Better?"

She didn't have it in her to dignify him with a response, and so she went to step away once more, only to be cut off by his tall form.

"Not even so much as a _thank you?_ " He asked indignantly, though the curve of his lips told her he was goading her.

"I have absolutely nothing to thank you for," she said tartly, "and I'm certain that I never will. Now if you'd _excuse_ me-"

"Look," he interrupted before she could step past him, his palms raised submissively. He watched for a moment, and once he was seemingly convinced that she wasn't going to _force_ her way past him, he quickly checked behind him to ensure that they did not have an audience.

"I know you don't very much fancy speaking with me at the moment, but I need you to understand. The things you remember, _have not happened._ Not anymore. The memories you have, the things you remember me doing... that's not me, not now. That was... I don't even know who that was," he said as he swept a hand through his hair. "I really must apologise, this must all be so very confusing. I should have been more patient with you last night. I shouldn't have let you leave without explaining myself."

"I..." she trailed off, having a hard time processing what he'd said, even though she now knew that she'd gone completely insane.

Tom Riddle couldn't have said those things.

Tom Riddle didn't _apologise._

But the serene feeling in her body told her that it was all perfectly _fine_ , there was not a single thing to worry about, not the slightest need to feel anything but calm.

 _Maybe he was telling the truth?_

"But I promise you, Hermione; you have nothing to fear from me. You've given me a second chance," he stated, and she was so distracted by how _soft_ her muscles felt, that she didn't notice him stepping closer, "and not going to waste it. I've made a life for myself here, one where I'm doing some good. And now with your help... with you here to help me know for certain that I'm doing things differently... well, I just can't see a limit on the good we could do."

"That's..." Her mind was completely blank. Dazed by both the man in front of her and the overpowering urge to _relax,_ she was at a loss. She'd imagined their confrontation going in many different scenarios, but never had she imagined anything close to this. Nothing _remotely_ close to this.

But then she saw the flash of ruby.

There, on his middle finger, sat the same ring she'd grown used to seeing on him, the ring she knew very well to be a horcrux, and immediately, it ignited an internal struggle.

 _Nothing to worry about._

But he's lying.

 _Why should that worry you?_

He's a killer.

 _You already knew that. Nothing to worry about._

He's wearing the horcrux.

 _You've shown him a future where it was destroyed. Of course he's wearing it. Nothing to worry about._

That's not right...

 _Nothing to worry about._

He hasn't changed.

 _Nothing to worry about._

 _Nothing to worry about._

No, no, _no, no!_

"Y-you're doing it again," she accused as her throat constricted, searching his eyes to find the proof of her suspicions. "Aren't you?"

"...I'm sorry?"

"You're manipulating me," she stated, her voice far calmer than she wished it to be.

"What? No, no, Hermione-"

"Do you truly think so little of me? You really think that's how daft I am?!" She demanded, her voice raising to _something_ that was almost raised. "That you can just give me that-that _badge_ , and your _words_ and I'll forget what you've done, just like that?"

"You're misunderstanding me-"

"You didn't see everything, you know," she said, feeling the calming potion protesting in her stomach as she stepped backward. "It doesn't matter what you've changed, I know what you've done. I know about Myrtle. I know about your parents, and your grandparents. I know about your uncle who you _framed._ I know about your little _Knights._ I know _all_ about you, Tom Riddle, and there is _nothing_ you could do that would make me forget."

As she breathed in deeply to make up for the lack of oxygen of her rant, the air between them that was filled with electricity moments ago felt oddly cold.

Had she been in any rational state of mind, she would have chosen a more appropriate location for her tirade than a secluded aisle of the library. Somewhere with witnesses.

But it was much too late for that now, she'd well and truly put her foot in it. And so, as she still found herself unable to truly panic, she could do nothing but watch as the muscles in his jaw contracted, how the veins in his neck became slightly more prominent.

But then, as the moment passed, he recovered, just as quickly as his expression had sharpened.

"How is your head?"

Stunned by the abrupt question and the soft tone it was spoken in, Hermione only stared.

"I would guess that it's getting quite painful right about now?"

"I - _how_ - _"_

"I remember my first few months here quite well. It truly was agony," he said conversationally before he stepped closer and raised a hand to gently touch a fingertip to her cheekbone. "I can only imagine it will be even worse for you. Years' worth of memories, all fighting for dominance..."

He ran his fingertips along her hairline as he spoke, gently brushing them over her temples and stopping over where the aching was at its worst.

"What a shame it would be; the brightest witch Hogwarts has seen in decades, driven mad, a victim to her own mind."

His expression had changed now, just as he had changed tactics; seductive as opposed to sympathetic. She knew this was yet another way to get to her, another way to throw her off, to silence her threat. But even still...

"I can help you," he whispered, and she almost needed to lean in to make out the words. "I can make it stop."

She had a hard time focusing over the chills his voice gave her. And what was worse was how she _wanted_ to say yes, she wanted the pain and the stress to stop, she wanted to be able to focus properly again, and -

"But only if you help me in return."

His offer - his _blackmail_ \- brought her back to reality and for the second time, she stepped back from him stubbornly, needing to put some space between them so that she could breathe again.

"I won't."

She could still feel the patterns he had traced over her skin, calm but on _fire._

He almost sadly, even though it must have been the answer he had expected.

"Well... you know where to find me when you change your mind."

And with that, Hermione was left, once more, alone.


End file.
